Nuffield Health Paddington

Went to the newly built Nuffield Health centre in Paddington on 9^th September.

Built recently and situated right in the middle of a development of offices. It is a spacious and inviting, has lots of different facilities and... Wait for it... cardio machines.
They have tried hard to make it a very inviting, offering free month passes for meeting targets, free health checkups (blood pressure and sugar level tests), etc... The problem is, because the monthly membership price is so expensive and these costs have been into the cost. Standard monthly fees are £82. Wow!
The facilities are good though, they cater for almost everything, except strength... No facilities for Power lifting or Olympic lifting.
They do have all angles of bench, flat, decline and incline, which is surprisingly good for a ‘health club’. But really, every gym needs at least two flat benches. They use hammer strength plates, so they are good quality, they just don’t have a power-wrack.
They do have two huge studios, regular classes and a sizable warm up area.
Nuffield health is a ‘charity’, a private health organisation, so they have health staff based somewhere on site, a physiotherapist, a doctor/nurse. They offer free physio, GP checks and as mentioned earlier, blood sugar and blood pressure tests.
They sure do offer loads of stuff to help people get fit and healthy, but they lack the really important stuff that makes a gym a GYM.
Despite all my griping, there business model is different to that of other gyms, because they are connected to a private health care organisation. They target areas in central London where lots of inner-city office workers and business men and women work, they bump the price and say “Hey you! Fat man! I can make you healthy!” It is a good idea, just needs tweaking, they are never going to breed athletes in their centres. I feel that I am just the wrong target audience for them; I live quite a healthy life any way and don’t need to pay someone else to check me over. But for people with limited physical education, or people who need prompting and poking with sticks, this seems like a good option.
Last words: as a gym they lack, but as a health/ fitness centre they are top of their field.